Posted
by
timothy
on Tuesday March 23, 2010 @11:43PM
from the have-in-my-hand-a-list dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "The Hill reports that Senators Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) have introduced a bill that would penalize foreign countries that fail to crack down on cyber criminals operating within their borders. Under the bill the White House would have the responsibility of identifying countries that pose cyber threats and the president would have to present to Congress in an annual report. Countries identified as 'hacker havens' would then have to develop plans of action to combat cybercrimes or risk cuts to their US export dollars, foreign-direct investment funds and trade assistance grants. Numerous American employers, including Cisco, HP, Microsoft, Symantec, PayPal, eBay, McAfee, American Express, Mastercard and Visa, as well as Facebook, are supporting the Senators' legislation."

This legislation is just going to blow up in our face as soon as other countries start demanding that we rat out our citizens for "criminal" activity (e.g. dissent, political freedom, etc.)

i'd guess it's more targeted at illegal activity such as 'piracy' and 'copyright infringement'. This smacks of RIAA/MPAA and leverage against countries such as Sweden for their lack of ability to close down The Pirate Bay.

This smacks of RIAA/MPAA and leverage against countries such as Sweden for their lack of ability to close down The Pirate Bay.

I doubt that the Scandinavian countries, which are self sufficient and reasonably wealthy by themselves, receive much foreign direct investment funds or trade assistance grants. I suppose that sanctions against their exports are possible (i.e. more expensive Ikea furniture or some such), but that would be counter-productive given the realities of the European Union and cross border European commerce and trade.

I dunno about that, I can see penalties against Nigeria happening. It would be interesting to see how tough they get with China and Russia which seem to be the biggest cybercrime havens. I'm sooooo f*ckin sure man.

And how is that supposed to happen? The US is by far the biggest exporter of money in the world. The reason this legislation would work is because the US can withhold that money to coerce other countries to comply. It doesn't work the other way around, because the other countries don't have leverage against the US.

One could argue that China (and Japan, actually) has leverage in the form of all the US debt they hold. But if China leveraging that debt against the US was a good thing for them, they'd have

If some countries had the political and military leverage, the US would be in deep shit if that catches on...

See it in whatever way you want, the US are (ab)using its dominant position in global politics to cram their laws down the throats of other nations. Imagine Iran having the upper military and economic hand and being able to force their views on decency on the rest of the globe and you see what the rest of the world thinks of this.

It's not like Europe or Canada told the US that they have to adopt that model. We offer an example. Follow or do your own thing, not like we treat you any different if you don't.

Did anyone tell the US "Get your health care act together or we'll stop trading with you"? Did I miss something?

Yes, I think it's a good idea that the US get a health care system that I deem superior. But it's not like I, or any country I know of, makes that a requirement to consider the US a "good" country. There are other qualitie

I started this thread and I'm tired of one assumption you all keep making: You all keep talking about my hatred of America. Well, let me spell this out for you - I LOVE AMERICA. I have done so my entire life. The fact that I disagree with you does not mean I don't love my country, neither does it mean I love my country less than you. Th truth is that I just hold my country to a higher standard than you do.

I'm tired of the assumption that your sort keeps making that you can bash America and love it at the same time. How many times do you think America will keep crawling back to you, hoping that you'll change?

I'm tired of the assumption that your sort keeps making that you can bash America and love it at the same time. How many times do you think America will keep crawling back to you, hoping that you'll change?

I'm tired of the assumption that your sort keeps making that you can bash America and love it at the same time. How many times do you think America will keep crawling back to you, hoping that you'll change?

1 : imperial government, authority, or system2 : the policy, practice, or advocacy of extending the power and dominion of a nation especially by direct territorial acquisitions or by gaining indirect control over the political or economic life of other areas; broadly : the extension or imposition of power, authority, or influence

If you don't think forcing another country to obey our laws by violating their national sovereignty through political and military influence isn't imperialism, you're fucking stupid.

So all trade sanctions, even those related to human rights violations, are "imperialism" in your opinion?

In a pretend world, there could be sanctions related to human rights violations that were based on moral values. You're welcome to provide me with a real world example from the United States.

Keep in mind we have supported governments of Iraq, Indonesia, Iran, Columbia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Chile, Argentina, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, China, and others while they violated human rights. We even supported apartheid South Africa and we still support apartheid in Israel/Palestine. Some su

Perhaps I should be more clear. I don't think there have been trade sanctions in the last sixty years by the United States based on moral grounds. You are welcome to provide me with a real world example, but it seems like you don't have any that you're willing to present. North Korea is probably the best case you could make. So, make a case, or you can reply with vague implications of begging the question in imaginary scenarios that do little to prove any point.

In the 1980s, both the Reagan and Thatcher administrations, in the USA and UK respectively, followed a 'constructive engagement' policy with the apartheid government, vetoing the imposition of UN economic sanctions on South Africa, justified by a belief in free trade and a vision of South Africa as a bastion against Marxist forces in Southern Africa. Thatcher declared the ANC a terrorist organisation, and in 1987 her spokesman, Bernard Ingham, famously said that anyone who believed that the ANC would ever form the government of South Africa was "living in cloud cuckoo land".

How many posters in this thread are posting using a neighbors WiFi without permission?how many of us posted the illegal DeCSS code in posts?how many people here have downloaded a MP3?how many people here have discussed baseball without the express written consent....well, you get the point. We're all criminals.

What? I need written consent now from someone to post that Baseball is about the most boring sport in existance? Gee, talk 'bout free speech... or is that banned now too?

Ok, snideness aside. When you look at laws, not only in the US, it's a general trend, you'll see a damn lot of laws that are essentially unenforcable and only detectable if something else already allows the feds to raid you. It's almost like they're trying to construct something that allows them to tack any crazy, arbitrary fine or punishme

Screw that for years the USA harbored Irish terrorists. That is people convicted of blowing things up and murder. They did the same with north African terrorists that blew things up and murdered in France. Of course as soon as USA suffered a major foreign terrorist attack on it's own soil their tune changed.

This double standard is why the USA has such a bad perception in most of the rest of the World.

No. Take a look at the two pushing this bill: Hatch in particular has a history of supporting idiotic things like allowing copyright holders to destroy property of suspected infringers and Gillibrand has a hostory of taking large campaign contributions from parties directly related to legislation she was involved in. It therefore shouldn't be terribly surprising that these two were involved.

It's still imperialism. We just noticed that it's cheaper and more profitable to install a local government instead of sending our troops and our bureaucracy there, which costs money and manpower. That has been outsourced. We allow countries now to govern themselves, but by virtue of WTO and other organisations that ensure these countries cannot act against our interests we keep them at the leash.

Imperialism didn't end last century. It's still going on, we are just more subtle about it now. Instead of direc

Yeah, 'cause ripping off is something that's only allowed if we profit from it. Like, say, when we dictate the terms you may trade with us and you can't complain or we'll simply destroy that figment of imagination you call your economy.

i dont really think you understand how American foreign policy really works. We are not the cops of the world despite what the people in power seem to think.
If you want a good understanding on what US foreign policy really is, read/listen to some Noam Chomsky.

Limiting trading with a country that commits crimes against you isn't an abuse of foreign policy. This isn't being "cops of the world" this is being cops of the US and interacting less with countries that won't play nice.

And yes, it is the US definition of nice, but so what? Each country is free to choose who they want to trade with and it is usually based upon the countries following each other's laws when dealing with each other.

Limiting trading with a country that commits crimes against you isn't an abuse of foreign policy. This isn't being "cops of the world" this is being cops of the US and interacting less with countries that won't play nice.

And yes, it is the US definition of nice, but so what? Each country is free to choose who they want to trade with and it is usually based upon the countries following each other's laws when dealing with each other.

A bit rich coming from the country that, at least until recently, was only sabotaging international law. Being Dutch I particularly remember the Hague Invasion Act [hrw.org].

But hey, you have a different president now. So if we were to accept that a country that is an origin of cybercrime is, as a country, committing a crime: Who specifically do you advocate starting a trade war with? Europe, China, Brazil, India, Russia? All of them?

Frankly, I think this would be used as a stick to threaten U.S. Allies to try and force the adoption of draconian U.S. style copyright laws. It would most certainly combine in an unpleasant way with ACTA. I have strong doubts that it will have much, if any, legitimate use.

That wouldn't be so bad if the U.S. wasn't already using so many other sticks to bludgeon it's allies. The U.S. needs to consider the consequences of making it less profitable and less palatable for other countries to trade with it.

So how will this work within the borders of the US? Will states be able to with hold federal taxes if the federal govenment does not go after other states? Will the federal government withhold taxes to itself if it does not successfully clamp down on US cyber crime?

How about waging war against countries that aren't on board with our petrodollar cartel? Or waging war to line the pockets of the military industrial complex? Is that an abuse of foreign policy? Is that being "cops of the world"?

I think you're very confused on who the very worst offenders on the planet in that regard is.

Oh goody! Let me guess, we get to define who the criminals are, right? Let's see, we need to exclude:

1) wars of aggression (Vietnam, Lebanon, Phillippines, Iraq, etc)2) trade wars (Iraq, Cuba, pretty much all of central and south america)3) covert coup d'etat (Iran, Iraq, pretty much all of central and south america)4) aiding and abetting known terrorists (the CIA in Iraq, Iran, and pretty much all of central and south america)

And remember, if you so much as allow a single credit card to be stolen from an IP address from within your country, we reserve the right to use any of the above methods to exact justice.

You forgot weapons of mass destruction: the US remains the only nation in the world ever to have dropped a nuclear weapon on a civilian-populated area.

I do wonder how much further the US can push its luck before the rest of the world just starts telling them to shove it, though. As I have noted before, they are no longer the world's "superpower" by any meaningful standard, though plenty of people in the US government don't seem to have realised that yet. These repeated attempts to promote US business interests abroad might carry some weight in the US where they recently officially legalised buying the government, but it's not really in anyone else's interests. For the rest of the world, sucking up to a major foreign government is only worth it if the rewards are commensurate, and no-one really believes that about the US any more, and there is a lot of political competition today in many states with traditionally close ties to the US making it harder to do things quietly behind closed doors than it used to be (see: SWIFT, ACTA).

1) Botnet initiated in Canada, with participants all over the world2) Botnet initiated in another country or the US, with Canadian participants3) Someone who downloaded the latest Metallica song in Canada4) Someone who posted a copyrighted Fox News report on their Canadian blog5) Hackers! from Canada6) A website that is infected with malware, with the company or server residing in Canada

I doubt any of those things would result in less trade with Canada. I am sure NAFTA would over rule it for one.

How about Botnet command centers that have been located, the IPs they are using have been found, the ISPs providing the internet connection have been found and asked to take them offline. However the ISPs and the country will not take them offline.

The U.S. doesn't obey NAFTA rulings or WTC rulings. I think it's been almost a decade now that since the U.S. decided to unilaterally disobey the terms of trade treaties it's signed whenever it was more convenient to not follow them.

The treaties haven't been scrapped because it's worth more to keep it and to ignore the U.S. transgressions, for now.

But we often get U.S. politicians up here threatening us over completely false and made up allegations that the Repbulican party seems to invent. In the waning

As shown with the Special 301 list which stated the Canada was needing to update copyright laws (which could label Canada a criminal haven since it doesn't have a DMCA). After it was issued about Canada being in the wrong, many companies publicly stated otherwise. [slashdot.org]

This is pointless legislation because they very country it's targeting (*coughpeople'srepubliccough*), we refuse to recognize for their already existing undeclared "warfare" against the US, such as their currency manipulation.

"Cyber warfare" will just be one more thing we ignore for economic/political reasons.

Just like child porn, cybercrime is another excuse to go after their real goal: Dictate who does what on the web. Soon after, they'll say file sharing is cybercrime, and they will twist another country's arm to impose their ACTA crap.

I agree that you should not have to follow US laws.However it also seems fair that we (the US) should cut back on foreign aid to a country that say won't shut down the Botnet command centers operating in their borders.

I'm fine if the legislation is only about shutting down botnet command centers, spammers and malware.

Not fine if it includes stuff like "if you don't have DMCA laws, you're a criminal haven - since criminals (from the US POV) can reverse engineer and break DRM, even if your country says that is not a criminal act". Same if those countries just happen to have different copyright laws (e.g. Canada).

A lot of legislation has very nice titles, e.g. "No Child Left Behind Act", but the details are what count.

You pick a good name and enough people might believe what they want about it and thus support it without looking too closely at the details.

> neither should Canadian citizens receive immunity when facing international copyright charges

Depends on what those "international copyright" charges are, and what laws they are based on.

If they are not actually international copyright laws, but just some stuff that the USA is trying to push to Canada, but Canada hasn't accepted it, then I don't see why Canadian citizens should have to follow those. Especially laws like the DMCA.

The Canadian citizens already pay a levy. And strangely enough the Media Co

i bet all the people defending this, and the general foreign policy of acting like the cops of the world, would be outraged at the thought of having to follow canadian, french, russian, ect. law. They would probably call for a military strike of London if the shoe was on the other foot. Fucking hypocrites.

Quoting from that chart....Each country lists 6 contributing factors, share of malicious computer activity, malicious code rank, spam zombies rank, phishing web site hosts rank, bot rank and attack origin, to substantiate its cybercrime ranking.
So in otherwords being a victim-- having a hijacked computer-- gets you ranked up on that chart. Thats real clever. I thought the point of all this was C&C servers that the ISPs refused to disconnect, not mom and pop having a zombified computer that they are

This is a future backdoor for enforcing upcoming ACTA, and for cracking down on file sharing/other perceived piracy/copyright infringements.
And ultimately for imposing global internet censorship (controls on perceived indecent or perceived dangerous content).

If we (the earth) ever end up with global internet censorship its not going to be coming from the US and its not going to come until after someone pries our (Americans) First Amendment from our cold dead hands.

I hope you are right, but as far as I can see the US has did a lot for censorship lately. Or do you know what the ACTA is about? Seen what is happening with viacom vs youtube? It's the DMCA that has shut down free speech in the USA and the usage of the most smallest part of a book is no longer considered fair use....
Buddy really, I hope you are right, but I am afraid you will be wrong.

I sure as hell don't trust the US Gov't to use a very narrow definition of "cyber criminal"

And this is exactly the problem, no one trusts the US government (more specifically, 76% of Americans only trust the government to do the right thing only some of the time, or never). Not just with defining cyber criminal, with anything.

Unfortunately it is with good reason. After a decade of Bush (and not just Bush, the incompetent congress that was with him), followed up with bailouts for incompetent banks and Obama pushing a lousy healthcare bill, there isn't a lot to trust.

The USA has the right to not give aid and to not trade with certain countries. Either way, this is going to be used to force IP laws globally. The funny thing about cyber war, is that it is called a war. We have nuclear weapons and the potential to destroy each other. Does that mean we're at nuclear war? What we are seeing is cyber espionage and preparations for cyber warfare. The only way this can be fought is if the world largely stands against the American government. The American people need to also sta

When you point a finger at someone else, three are pointing back at you.

US Federal Guvmint - ACTA, DMCA, NSA wiretaps, full laundry list available online.Cisco - Great Firewall of China [wired.com], 'nuff said.Visa/Mastercard/Amex - Insecure [csoonline.com] data practices [slashdot.org] while raping their customers with fees.Facebook - In bed with Zynga, whose CEO has admitted he's a scammer [escapistmagazine.com] and that his games are rife with malware.Google - Censorship in China (until they got pwned).Microsoft - No comment needed (with a CEO that looks like Satan [winandmac.com], it

They'd consider it, then they'd realize that Spain is part of the EU and making trade sanctions against the EU is like shooting yourself in the foot with a shotgun, so instead they'll probably rattle their sabers meaninglessly at countries like Serbia and Ukraine.

I don't think American Express, Paypall, Visa and Mastercard are worried about people ignoring their EULA and pirating their IP. I suspect they rather hope to catch all the people stealing credit card details.

I don't think American Express, Paypall, Visa and Mastercard are worried about people ignoring their EULA and pirating their IP. I suspect they rather hope to catch all the people stealing credit card details.

If Visa, Mastercard, et al were -really- serious about cutting down credit fraud, they would push for higher security within credit transactions and cards. But lower security results in more transactions which results in more revenue for them, so they focus instead on punishing people who abuse an insecure service while ignoring the security holes that allow such fiascoes to occur in the first place.

the RIAA are not part of the list of supporters and traditionally everything that can be abused has been abused, see every law in the history of mankind.

Anyhow there's nothing wrong with the concept behind this bill, just questionable if it'll be effective or not. Usually in the case of countries with very high crime the government will keep saying "Yes, yes, we're working as hard as we can to crack down on it!" but in the end they're powerless and trying to sanction the country just leads to even more crim

Just 'cause something has the potential to be abused you can't assume it will.

If a government has passed a law which can be abused and hasn't abused it, that just means they haven't got around to it yet.

For example, I remember when British anti-terrorist laws were only going to be used against, like, terrorists, and not Icelandic banks and people who over-fill their garbage bins. Or when speed cameras were only going to be installed at accident blackspots. And the 1920 Firearms Act was not going to be used to ban gun ownership, merely ensure that they would only be in the hands of de

I will support this legistation, as soon as we can agree to stop any and all trade with China on Human Rights Violations full-stop, because human rights violations are vastly more important then cyber crime.
Untill that happends, shut your yap.

Just 'cause something has the potential to be abused you can't assume it will.

Sure you do. It's the Law of Unintended Consequences. Several large media-related bills (and non-media related bills for that matter) have been abused in ways the original authors didn't necessarily intend, or at least that many supporters didn't think would happen. Overreaching sections of the DMCA making it impossible to sample works for critique or personal use. The PATRIOT Act being used to get ISP records for a Stargate SG-1 fansite webmaster suspected of copyright infringement. It's also been invoked

You'd think so - it contains huge botnets, lots of spammers, and I'm sure there are more crimes committed online from within its borders than it generally admits. It'll be interesting to see how it trades less with itself or imposes sanctions on itself to make it behave better towards itself!

It's also nice to know that you probably represent the average US citizen, ie. full of shit. ABS used to mean something here in Canada before "anti-lock braking system" was invented... we're used to your type.